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‘Well, what is it?’
‘Wait and see!’ I can tell he’s itching for me to say more and, in the end, I take pity on him. ‘It’s a Fiesta and it’s blue, OK?’
‘Good choice. Sensible, practical and the parts won’t cost the earth. Did you get a discount? Did you remember to ask for the floor mats?’
I walk him through the freebies and he’s impressed. ‘Well done, Charley. You’ve got yourself a nice little runabout there, and you’ve obviously got your dad’s knack for negotiation.’
I can’t wait to see his face when I bring it home.
On Friday evening I set about clearing out the Micra. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates in a car over time. The glovebox is full of leaflets from places that Josh and I have visited on our camping trips. I can’t resist leafing through a few of them and letting the memories play in my mind. The cassettes are the same. I can remember Josh practically dancing with excitement when he found a copy of the very firstNow That’s What I Call Musicalbum in a charity shop in Whitstable. ‘This will be a collector’s item one day, Charley!’ he’d enthused. I won’t miss it, or the Phil Collins albums, or the REO Speedwagon. The Whitney Houston tape that I’d wrenched out of the player on Christmas Day had worked its way under one of the seats, and takes a bit of dexterity to retrieve.
Eventually everything is out. I’ve kept a few useful things, like the antibacterial wipes and rubber gloves I found in the boot, but most of it is consigned to the bin. Reliving so much of Josh’s and my shared history has been a bittersweet experience. It leaves me feeling a bit sad and hollow, but there are no tears this time. I think I’m coming to accept that maybe we had run our course. I still miss him, but he’s right that we were arguing a lot and, if I’m honest with myself, I wasn’t happy towards the end and he obviously wasn’t – at least, not with me.
Saturday dawns. I’m in high spirits, looking forward to picking up the Fiesta as soon as I finish work. Typically, my first patient is late. I can see him sitting in his car in the car park, obviously talking on his phone. By the time he finally breezes in without so much as a word of apology, he’s ten minutes late. He’s followed by Mrs Howard and her two bratty kids. She always insists on a Saturday appointment, and always brings them. Why her husband can’t look after them for a couple of hours I don’t know. I have to try to keep one eye on what I’m doing and one eye on them, to make sure they aren’t fiddling with my computer or any of my tools. After one very stressful appointment last year, I realised that I must have taken my eyes off them for just a fraction too long, as they’d added ‘JULIAN IS A SMELLY BUM’ and ‘EMILY IS A BIGGER SMELLY BUM’ to Mrs Howard’s notes.
By the time I’m done, I’m running late for my appointment with Grant, and everyone on the road seems to be in dawdle mode, so when I finally pull up at the dealership I’m nearly half an hour late and my stomach is a knot of stress. Grant has an elderly couple at his desk as I walk into the showroom. He looks up, smiles and mouths ‘I won’t be long’ at me, so I take a seat in the waiting area.
The elderly couple are taking an age. What on earth are they talking about? They seem to be going through the brochure on the desk word by word, and questioning everything. Eventually, they appear satisfied and Grant walks them out of the showroom.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says as he collects me from the waiting area and leads me to his desk. ‘They’re a lovely couple, but they’re struggling to make up their minds. That’s the third time they’ve been in to look at the same car, would you believe?’
I apologise for my own lateness, but Grant tells me he’d been with the couple for an hour, so I would only have been waiting for longer. We start the handover process. There are a few more forms to fill in, and then he takes me out and shows me how everything on the car works. He helps me to connect my phone and shows me how I can control it from the screen in the car, and then I ease the Fiesta out onto the road for the journey home.
‘Bloody hell, Charlotte, what is that?’ My dad’s jaw is on the floor as he comes out to inspect my purchase when I arrive home. ‘When you said you’d bought a blue Fiesta, I thought you meant something sensible!’
‘Don’t you like it?’
He’s walking round the car now, inspecting it. ‘Of course I do. It’s very smart and… good grief, look at the size of that spoiler! Have you turned into a boy racer?’
‘It would be girl racer, and no. I just wanted something a bit more fun, you know?’
‘Well, it’s a long way from the Micra, I’ll give you that. Is it as fast as it looks?’
I grin slyly at him. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Well, for God’s sake don’t tell your mother. She’ll only worry about you.’ He walks round the car one more time, then looks at me appraisingly for a moment, before breaking out a grin to match mine.
‘I think it suits you perfectly.’
9
Mads and I are in Bluewater again, shopping for my ‘holiday wardrobe’ as she puts it. I was only after a swimsuit, but Mads has had other ideas. So far, she’s talked me into three bikinis in different colours, with sarongs to go with them ‘for when you’re on your way to or from the beach’. I’ve also got a couple of suitcases, new sunglasses, a hat, some shorts and T-shirts, two pairs of sandals and a waterproof camera. On top of all of that, Mads persuaded me that I absolutely needed some light trousers and long-sleeved tops ‘for the evenings’, and I picked up some more clothes for my ‘everyday’ wardrobe. The floor around the table in the café where we’re recuperating is covered in bags.
‘So, I don’t know if you want to hear this or not, but I bumped into Scarlett for the first time on the landing this morning,’ Mads tells me, as she places a flat white and an almond croissant in front of me, and a slab of carrot cake and a pot of Earl Grey in front of herself.
I can feel my stomach knot. Do I want to know about Josh’s post-Charley love life? In the end curiosity gets the better of me.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Scrawny little bitch, isn’t she?’
I laugh, and my stomach unclenches.
Mads takes a bite of her carrot cake and continues. ‘She was letting herself into Josh’s flat just as I was popping out for the papers and some milk. Short, scrawny, pointy-faced little thing. What on earth he sees in her I have no idea.’
Although I know she’s doing it to be supportive, and I love her for it, her description isn’t completely fair. I’ve met Scarlett a couple of times and, if I’m going to be as objective as I can be about the boyfriend-stealing bitch, a more accurate description of her would be ‘petite’. She is a little bit pointy-faced but, in her favour, she has the most amazing mane of blonde wavy hair that reaches almost to her waist. I suspect a lot of colouring and styling goes into it, or else it’s mostly extensions. An image of Josh running his hands through it as she straddles him pops into my head and I hastily push it away.
‘Do you think she’s moved in?’ I ask.
